This Frozen Drink Maker Is Just What You Need to Make Slushies at Home This Summer

Tested by Taylor Murray

If you've scrolled through any of the social media platforms lately, then you might have spied the latest gadget from Ninja. The brand has been making a splash in the home appliance market, offering affordable and innovative devices to make everything from ice cream to soda. Ninja's latest viral device is the Slushi, a pro-grade frozen drink maker.

Whether the weather is warm or cool, there's just something about frozen drinks that keeps us coming back for more. While you can use a blender to create something reasonably capable of satisfying that craving, the magical spinning machines you see at restaurants and convenience stores always offer something a bit more enjoyable. Frozen margaritas, daiquiris, milkshakes and juices are all tasty enough to convince us to part with our money, but sadly the machines that make them are mostly priced in the high hundreds (or thousands) of dollars.

Thankfully, the Ninja Slushi is priced at a cool $349.99. But can it deliver the same results that we have come to expect from the professional models? We got our hands on one of these sold-out machines to find out.

What Is the Ninja Slushi?

The Ninja Slushi is one of the newest additions to Ninja's impressive line of home appliances. This appliance claims to make professional-grade slush drinks at home. At $350, it's a fraction of the price of other commercial models like this one. It has five preset functions: slush, spiked slush, frappe, frozen juice and milkshake. In addition, the machine lets you manually adjust the level of chilling so you can customize drinks to your liking. Unlike frozen drink machines that use some kind of blender to get that frosty texture, the Ninja Slushi has a built-in cooling mechanism that freezes the water in the liquid you add. That means no added ice, which can dilute your drink. Just pour your favorite soda or juice straight into the machine and set it to go. After a few minutes, you can dispense an icy slush.

How Does the Ninja Slushi Work?

While some frozen beverage machines on the market utilize some kind of blender to create drinks like this, the Ninja Slushi works much more similarly to commercial slush drink machines. There's a horizontal metal cylinder that the machine chills from the inside using the brand's proprietary "RapidChill" technology. A plastic auger spins the liquid against this cold tube of metal, all encased inside a large plastic housing that has an opening at the top for adding liquids and a pour spout on the front for dispensing drinks.

In this way, the machine works somewhat similarly to an ice cream maker by manipulating liquid against a cold surface to freeze the water in the base liquid into ice crystals. According to the manual, the machine won't work without some kind of sugar, or with too much alcohol, so you can't turn unmixed spirits or diet and sugar-free sodas and juices into slushes.

How We Tested the Ninja Slushi

We unboxed the Slushi and started with setting it up and looking through the manuals and included recipes. We made five different beverages, one for each preset function.

Slush Test: We started with the standard "slush" function, which we used with three cans of standard Coca-Cola at room temperature. It took 35 minutes for the slushie to be done. The consistency was thick and icy, just like you would get at a gas station or movie theater. We did not need to adjust the settings at all.

Milkshake Test: Next, we tried a chocolate milkshake made with milk, cream, cocoa powder, chocolate syrup and sugar on the "milkshake" function. It took 38 minutes to make about a quart and a half, or four to six servings. The final texture is not like a traditional milkshake but exactly like a fast food joint's frosty (which we thought was delicious).

Frozen Juice Test: After the milkshake, we tried chilled fruit juice using the "frozen juice" preset. The fruit juice we used had 27 grams of sugar per eight-ounce serving, which is one more gram than the minimum required for this setting, per the manual. Using three cups of juice, the machine took around nine minutes to turn to slush.

Spiked Slush Test: To test how the machine did with alcohol-based drinks, we poured a chilled bottle of rosé wine into the machine and used the "spiked slush" setting. It took around 14 minutes to create a slush, and we thought the final beverage resembled frosés we've had at bars and restaurants. Without having to add any other ingredients, the drink stays at a nice temperature and texture even as the ice melts, eventually just turning into a cold glass of wine. The wine slush was finished quickly compared to other drinks in our testing.

Frappe Test: We also tried a non-dairy coffee frappe using the "frappe" preset. Using a basic recipe of cold brew, oat milk, sugar and vanilla, this preset took over 30 minutes before it was done. This was our first cycle on the machine during this day of testing, which may have contributed to the long cycle time. The consistency was a bit icy but overall enjoyable and fairly similar to a Starbucks Frappuccino, especially if tweaked a bit with mix-ins and flavorings. Pouring this drink on the "frappe" setting came out very thick and slow, similar to the soda slush.

In between each test, we hand-washed the machine to see how tricky this was, then ran the dishwasher-safe parts through the dishwasher at the end of the test to see how those parts fared in the machine.

What We Loved About the Ninja Slushi

Foolproof Operation

From the first test, this machine proved simple to operate. We opened the hatch, poured in a few cans of soda, and after a few minutes, dispensed ice-cold slush like at a gas station or movie theater. Even with things like wine, we were surprised at how little we had to do to prepare the base drink. Like the soda, we poured the wine directly into the machine and it quickly turned to slush without needing to dilute or adjust the liquid at all. The buttons are easy to use and intuitive, with clear, simple labels. Not only that, but the machine has a sensor to detect if your levels of sugar or alcohol are off and will alert you to adjust the cooling setting or ratio of your drink.

Easy to Clean

When making anything with a high sugar or alcohol content, and especially with a bulky appliance with moving parts, cleaning the parts and pieces is top of mind. Luckily, the Ninja Slushi actually is easy to clean. The three main parts that come in contact with the liquid slide off and are dishwasher-safe. The only part that gets dirty that cannot be removed is the cooling cylinder. For this reason, the Ninja Slushi comes with a "rinse" cycle which runs the auger without any cooling. We poured a few pitchers of warm water through the machine to rinse it between each round of drink-making, leaving the cylinder just requiring a quick wipe with a wet cloth to clean while the other pieces went to the sink. If you were switching from one kind of juice to another, you could get away with just using the rinse cycle and not removing any other parts.

Long Run Time

The Ninja Slushi can run for up to 12 hours straight without an issue. During that time, it will continually keep your drink frozen and ready to dispense without diluting the mixture at all. That gives you a lot of versatility when it comes to using the machine and gives it a big edge over blender-style frozen drink machines, which make drinks in batches.

What We Didn't Love About the Ninja Slushi

Bulky

While you technically could store the Ninja Slushi in a cabinet if you have a particularly large amount of kitchen storage space, it's quite a big machine. It's about 17 inches tall (standard height between counters and kitchen cabinet uppers is 18 inches). It's narrow, at just seven inches wide, but deep. You would have to have a fair amount of counter space to keep this out at all times. Most likely, you'll end up storing this with other sporadically used appliances.

Long Freeze Time

The times for freezing varied wildly. The frozen juice was ready in just nine minutes and the wine in a little under 14. On the other end of the spectrum, the chocolate milkshake took a whopping 38 minutes to freeze. This is likely due to a combination of the serving size of the batch of the milkshake (four to six servings) and that the milkshake setting freezes to a much, much thicker consistency than the juice or spiked slushes.

Bottom Line: Is a Ninja Slushi Worth the Splurge?

Short answer? It depends. Someone who lives alone and has a small apartment kitchen might not find a lot of opportunities to use this fun, but ultimately unnecessary, splurge. On the other hand, someone with a big family that hosts a lot of get-togethers? You'll definitely find plenty of reasons to bust this cool device out. Movie nights with kids, afternoon pool parties, or even a spirited book club would all be just a bit more festive with a cool frozen slush drink churning in your Ninja Slushi. Ultimately, it will depend on how much frozen drinks appeal to you. If you find yourself running to the gas station to get an icy slushy every time the weather gets above 80°F, then you'll love being able to have the frozen beverage of your choice at your fingertips at a moment's notice.

Why You Should Trust Our Tester

Taylor Murray is a graduate of Johnson and Wales University with a degree in Culinary Nutrition. She worked as a professional chef for over 10 years before moving into recipe and product testing and development. She has tested several hundred products for Food Network and other brands over the last six years, covering everything from carbon steel pans to food dehydrators.

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